


Prelude

by afrai



Series: Lieder [1]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Kid Fic, Pre-Series, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4590432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrai/pseuds/afrai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early incidents from the acquaintance of Jonathan Strange and Arabella Woodhope. (1/4)</p><p>
  <em>When she thought of Jonathan Strange ever after, it was with an instinctive liking and sympathy — a secret conviction that she understood him, the source of which it never occurred to her to question.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: Non-explicit animal cruelty and animal death.

There was a strange boy in the churchyard.

The Stranges were one of the first families in the county and the boy was Mr. Laurence Strange's heir. He was waiting for his aunt and uncle, they being detained in conversation with the curate, who was anxious to tender his condolences for their recent loss. 

But all of this Arabella Woodhope, who was the curate's daughter, was not to know. She was four years old and all she understood was that the boy was sad, though he was nearly a grown-up. He must be eight years old, she thought, if not ten.

"You look," she said, "like a big black bird."

Jonathan Strange was feeling as though someone had hollowed him out. He had watched himself as though from a distance as the adults did what they wished with him. He was hustled into mourning clothes, taken to and from his mother's funeral, harassed with sympathy by his mother's relations, and hectored by his father at turns.

His aunt and uncle Erquistoune had behaved to him with particular kindness, and asked if he wished to come to Edinburgh with them, to stay for a while — a long while, they hoped. He said that he had no objection.

He knew that in days past he would have felt a vast difference between his father's coldness and his aunt and uncle's warmth. In these curious empty days following his mother's death, however, there seemed no difference at all.

It is a lonely feeling at any age to know that you are no longer first in the affections of anyone in the world, but at ten years old, it is an especially lonely thing to know.

He looked at the little girl with the indifference that seemed to have become a habit with him. She was a tiny scrap composed mostly of curls and round brown eyes, of the age when she would accept anything she was told. She would not wonder at his being silent when he ought to weep, or accuse him of being maudlin when he was low.

"Perhaps I shall fly away," he said.

The child accepted this as something that might well occur.

"Why are you so black?" she said.

"My mother has died," said Jonathan. He had spoken without much thought, but the word 'died' gave him a small unpleasant shock as it left his mouth, sharp enough to be felt even through the heavy blanket muffling his emotions. He added, "She has gone to Heaven."

Arabella was not surprised by this. To be in Heaven was, to her, the natural condition of mothers, for she had never known hers in any other state.

"My mamma is an angel," she said. "And she is dressed all in white."

"Perhaps my mother and yours will be introduced," said Jonathan, but the young Miss Woodhope had still more to say.

"In Heaven," she said, "everyone eats plum-pudding for breakfast, and no one ever has porridge."

"And what do they have for their dinner?" said Jonathan, with real interest.

But Arabella was not permitted to complete her disquisition upon the cuisine of Heaven, for her brother emerged from the church.

"Arabella, pray do not make a nuisance of yourself!" he cried. He swept her up and nodded at Jonathan Strange.

"I am sorry, Jonathan," he said. 

He had been acquainted with Jonathan since they were very young, but Henry Woodhope found himself unequal to the awkwardness of meeting his friend in such circumstances. The recollection of his own mother's demise — which Henry remembered distinctly, if his sister did not — only served to increase his constraint. He found relief for his embarrassment in chastising his sister: 

"How can you be so wicked! Have not I told you you ought not to quiz people so? My father will be vexed to hear of this!"

Jonathan scarcely had the opportunity to say he did not mind being quizzed when Henry Woodhope had borne his sister off, glad of the excuse to abandon the scene. But as they left the churchyard Arabella turned in her brother's arms to look back at Jonathan. The recollection of the child's wondering brown eyes stayed with Jonathan, as he was bundled into a carriage with his aunt and uncle for the long journey to Edinburgh. 

The image reappeared whenever he thought of the high lonely hills around Ashfair where his mother had walked: the cold winter's day, the hard earth and grey sky, and the child in Henry Woodhope's arms, fixing him with a direct, unembarrassed gaze.

As for Arabella, she had forgotten the encounter by the next morning, when she was again subjected to the daily trial of porridge for breakfast. But when she thought of Jonathan Strange ever after, it was with an instinctive liking and sympathy — a secret conviction that she understood him, the source of which it never occurred to her to question.

* * *

When Jonathan Strange turned seventeen, something occurred to make his father very pleased with him. The suit that his mother's relations, the Erquistounes, had brought against Mr. Laurence Strange for Jonathan's benefit met an apparent reversal in the Doctors' Commons. 

This caused great indignation among Jonathan's relations, though it was little surprise, said his uncle Erquistoune bitterly, that an English court should not know what justice looked like. (Jonathan's uncle Erquistoune was a Scotsman.)

All was by no means lost. The Erquistounes' lawyers, not being Scotsmen, were persuaded that they might yet convince the English court to look at the matter in the correct light, and the Erquistounes' suit in the Scottish court was yet proceeding against Mr. Strange. Yet Mr. Strange was so much pleased by this turn that he was possessed by an uncharacteristic fit of generosity. He greeted Jonathan almost amiably when his son arrived from Edinburgh, where he spent half the year with his mother's connections. Mr. Strange's delight at having got the better of his son extended even to the gift of a new horse.

It was this horse Jonathan rode, one fine autumn day, through the village of Clunbury. He was surrounded by all the beauties of an English autumn. The air was crisp and sweet as an apple and the skies stretching out overhead were a pure, endless blue. 

But Jonathan was in no mood to be charmed by nature. He missed his genial, independent-minded, clever cousins, and he fell to thinking of his mother, as he always did when he first returned to Ashfair.

To have accepted his father's gift seemed very like a betrayal of her whom his father had so cruelly used. Yet Jonathan did not think she would have desired him to deny himself the pleasure of such a fine horse. The Erquistounes had told Jonathan a great deal of his mother and everything they had said suggested that she had loved pleasure and fine things as much as Jonathan did himself. He did not doubt that she would not have expected anything but that he should take the horse and thoroughly enjoy the riding of it. Yet some voice within him, faint but persistent, questioned whether he ought not to have done better than anyone so disposed to indulge him would expect.

He was so much engrossed in this quarrel between his pleasure in his new acquisition and his unease about how he had come by it that he paid no mind to the crowd of village boys hooting and poking at something in their midst. Jonathan was as interested in other people as any clever, spoilt young man tends to be. He would have ridden on past if the little girl standing unnoticed behind the group had not opened her mouth and screamed fit to wake the Raven King himself.

"Good God!" exclaimed Jonathan, nearly falling off his horse.

"Stop it!" shrieked the girl. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

The objects of her indignation only wondered aloud why _she_ did not stop it. They were all rather older than her, though younger than Jonathan, and they treated her with a tolerant disrespect.

"You had better go home," one advised her, not unkindly. "Mr. Woodhope would wish you to be attending to your embroidery or suchlike."

Since Jonathan had already checked his horse, it seemed only natural to pause at this mention of his friend's name. The girl was weeping with rage. Jonathan looked disapprovingly at the boys, and said:

"Come now, what is this?"

The boys had not noticed his approach any more than he had, at first, noticed them. When they saw the young Mr. Strange their air of assurance disappeared. A couple of the boys scattered, which enabled Jonathan to see for the first time what they had made of the creature with which they had been amusing themselves. It was not immediately evident what it had been, but upon closer inspection he saw that it was a three-legged kitten.

Jonathan lost his temper. He leapt off his horse and laid about him liberally with his riding crop.

"Cowards! Villains!" he cried. "Yes, run away — go on! You there, Ned Horrocks, I recall _your_ name. You may believe your mother will hear of this before the day is out!"

In a matter of minutes the field was empty. The only person left was the little girl. The kitten mewed and the girl knelt by it.

"You had better go in, miss," said Jonathan. He was still overset by his own outburst. In his confusion he waved his riding crop at the girl, before he recollected himself and stowed it away hastily. "I shall dispo — I shall assist the creature."

"It is not my cottage," said the girl, without looking up. "Poor thing!" 

She had a square, solemn face. One would never have thought it capable of producing such a sound as she had hurled at the kitten's tormentors just five minutes ago. Her eyes were full of tears, but after a moment she said, with surprising composure:

"We had best put it out of its misery. Do you know how to kill a kitten, sir? Henry generally drowns ours, but I doubt whether that will go as quick as I should like."

Jonathan would sooner have thought of growing wings and learning to fly than of killing a kitten. "I — no. I cannot say I have ever killed a kitten."

"Then I shall have to do it," said the girl with an air of decision. She rose and looked around herself for a murder weapon with extraordinary coolness, though her lashes were still wet.

"No, no," cried Jonathan, though not without some internal alarm. He did not at all wish to learn to kill a kitten, particularly not under the gaze of those ruthless brown eyes, for no doubt the girl would insist upon witnessing the event to ensure it was properly conducted. 

But before he could commit himself, or the girl venture upon any rash action, the kitten decided the matter by expiring, with a piteous last breath. The girl stroked its head, her thin chest heaving. But she had mastered herself by the time she looked up at Jonathan. Her eyes widened.

"Oh, sir," she cried. "You are hurt!"

Jonathan looked down and saw drops of blood upon his shirtfront. He clasped his hand to his nose. "D—! — That is to say, I beg your pardon, miss. It is nothing. A nosebleed, that is all." To reassure her, for she still looked distressed, he added, "From an excess of bile, no doubt."

"Oh!" she said. Her countenance was transformed by pity, and the square face lost all its sternness. She no longer looked quite so much like a miniature Fury, but an ordinary mortal girl, rather pretty. She produced a cambric handkerchief of spotless whiteness and rose onto the tips of her toes, saying:

"If you will be so good — "

Jonathan had no intention of staining the child's handkerchief, but without quite knowing how it happened, he found himself bent over to enable the girl to minister to his nose. 

"It really is quite all right," he was saying, but the girl paid no regard to him.

"If you bend your head, sir, that will help staunch the flow," she said. "You ought to pinch your nose as well. I can — "

"Thank you, I am capable of pinching my own nose," said Jonathan in a muffled voice.

"Henry has nosebleeds," she said. "It is an awkward affliction. I have never suffered from it."

"I can well believe it," said Jonathan, bemused. "You are so cool. A very Judith! But stay, do not I know you?"

"I beg you will keep your head down," said the girl, pushing the back of his head with gentle firmness as he tried to get a look at her. "Henry Woodhope is my brother, sir."

"Then you are — " Jonathan was almost certain the name was Annabel — if it was not Louisa. Before he could make up his mind to risk either one or the other, the girl said:

"I am Arabella Woodhope, Mr. Strange."

"Miss Woodhope," said Jonathan. "Quite. And how is your brother? I have not seen him in an age."

"He is well," said Miss Woodhope. "There, I believe the flow has almost stopped. Pray keep your head down. There is no harm in waiting a little longer. — He is at Oxford, you know." The broad forehead creased. "He will be vexed when he hears about this. I promised him I should not do anything hoydenish while he was away."

"Would you call your blackguarding those lads so handsomely hoydenish?" said Jonathan. He was pleased to see an answering gleam of humour in Arabella's eyes.

"I would not," she said. "But Henry often thinks things are hoydenish that I do not."

"If you were a little intemperate, it was with good reason."

"I doubt he will agree," said Miss Woodhope. She sighed. "Especially as it was no good to the poor cat."

"There is no reason he should find out," suggested Jonathan. "You may trust that no one will hear of what went forward today from me. And those boys will not wish to spread it abroad either."

But this only served to draw a look of surprise from the brown eyes. 

"Oh, I could not keep it from Henry!" she cried. "We tell each other everything. We are all the family each of us has."

"Certainly," said Jonathan, abashed. He had in fact forgotten that the curate had died a year ago. It had been while he was away at Edinburgh; he had known the elder Mr. Woodhope only very slightly, and had not seen Henry Woodhope since he had gone up to Oxford — but still, this was very bad.

Arabella Woodhope mistook the cause of his embarrassment, and said gently:

"I am obliged to you. But Henry is the kindest brother in the world, you know. I should not be afraid of telling him anything."

"I am glad," said Jonathan. He cast around for something else to say, and looked at the poor corpse upon the ground. "We must arrange for a decent burial for that creature."

Arabella looked sorrowful. "I shall lay it by my Mittens."

When Jonathan's nose had dried up he absently sought to return her handkerchief to the nonplussed Arabella, but before she managed to produce a civil demurral, he recollected himself and cried:

"You must think me a sad fellow, Miss Woodhope! I beg your pardon. But I must not go away without replacing your handkerchief. Here — " he fished in his pockets — "I beg you will have mine."

Miss Woodhope looked at the substitute Jonathan offered and smiled. It had the advantage of not being tainted with blood, and most of the fabric was its original shade of white. But Jonathan had forgotten that he had used it that morning to remove a tablespoon of marmalade that had somehow got onto his breeches (for this was before he went up to Cambridge and learnt to take an interest in dress).

"Thank you, Mr. Strange, but I will do very well without. I have several more. I will never miss it." She curtsied. "I am glad you are better, sir. Good day."

When, a week later, Jonathan's things were returned to him, freshly laundered, he found among them a cambric handkerchief of foreign provenance. Mrs. Hutchins, who took the Stranges' washing, was a clever woman, and the handkerchief was quite clean, though it would never be what it had once been. On a corner of the handkerchief was embroidered, rather shakily, the initials _AW_.

 _I wonder how long it took her!_ thought Jonathan, amused. _I ought to return it. I shall do so the next time I pass Clunbury._

But of course he never did.

* * *

Arabella checked at the threshold. Her brother was in the drawing room, along with a gentleman she did not at once recognise.

"Why, Henry, I thought you meant to ride to Shrewsbury today," she said.

"So we did," said Henry. "But it is raining and Strange thought it better to put off our expedition to another day. Strange, I believe you are acquainted with my sister."

The gentleman came forward with a smile. Arabella had not seen Jonathan Strange for some time. He had been at Cambridge, of course, and having left it, he spent little time at Ashfair. Even when he was not visiting his relations in Edinburgh, for a young man of his stamp, Bath, Brighton, Weymouth and Chelmsford possessed far greater charms than Shropshire. 

One look sufficed for Arabella to decide that he was not substantially improved by age and experience, though he was better-dressed, and wore the air of a man of the world. But she did not like him any the less for having stayed much the same.

"I must beg your pardon for intruding," he said. 

Arabella said Henry's friends must always be welcome.

"I hope you will stay to dinner," she said, looking apologetically at Henry. There was a pie that was to be his, which would have to be sacrificed upon the altar of hospitality. But she knew how much pride Henry took in his connection with Jonathan Strange, and he bore it with the greatest patience.

"Oh! There is no question," he said.

On Strange's side, he was favourably impressed by Miss Woodhope. He did not, it must be acknowledged, remember her, and took it rather on good faith that they were acquainted, since Henry had assured him they were. But he thought he ought to have remembered such a charming young lady. She was not more than sixteen or seventeen, but she carried herself with such self-possession that one forgot she was so young. He had of course seen prettier (Jonathan was at this time violently in love with a lady who lived in Edinburgh, a friend of his cousins and an acknowledged belle), but she had a way of looking arch that he liked. 

After five minutes' conversation he was treated to her smile — Arabella was not chary with her smiles — and his good opinion was confirmed. He would not, of course, have thought to pay any lady attentions while his heart was another's. (While the object of his affections was engaged to a baronet, this only served to increase his enjoyment of the attachment: it afforded him such excellent opportunities for repining, black moods, and wearying his friends with yearning descriptions of his lady love.)

Yet Jonathan thought he should like Arabella to look at him with interest. He should like her especially to smile at him again. He cast about for a subject likely to draw forth that smile. 

He looked out of the window and thought to remark on the weather, but this might show him in a poor light, since he had been so easily daunted by the rain on account of his new coat. He was on the verge of asking Miss Woodhope what she had planned to do with her day, when it occurred to him that this would probably remind her that whatever plans she had had, he had disrupted them by his arrival. He looked about the room in his extremity and noticed several pretty watercolours. The one nearest to him was of a cat.

"What a delightful portrait," he said.

"Oh!" said Arabella, embarrassed. She reached out, but Strange had picked up the painting. Arabella cast a look of reproach at Henry. "I would have put that away if I had known we were to have company."

"My sister painted it," said Henry.

"When I was eleven!" said Arabella. "I had a cat, Mr. Strange, of which I was very fond. It used to sit by my plate and eat bread and milk from my hand. I painted this after it died. I missed it a great deal — I still do, indeed. Poor Mittens!"

The cat's lineaments were admittedly traced by a youthful hand, but even at that age Miss Woodhope had not lacked talent. 

"A cat of some strength of mind, I believe," said Jonathan gravely.

"It was excellent company."

Jonathan was frowning at the painting. Something about it had caught his attention, and after a moment he reached into his pocket. He drew something out of it, looked in his hand, and laughed.

"You had a steadier hand for painting, Miss Woodhope," he said. "I must beg your pardon for retaining what is yours for so long. Do you recall how I came by this?"

He shook out Miss Woodhope's handkerchief, that she had given him so many years ago. The same initials adorned it as were marked upon a corner of the painting. Arabella's face lit up.

"Fancy your still having that!" she cried. "I did not think you would remember the incident."

"I am surprised you recollect it," said Strange. "You were quite young, whereas I was already a man — or thought myself one."

"You seemed very grown-up to me," said Arabella, smiling. "How heroic you looked when you descended on those boys! And it was so obliging of you to suffer an injury, you know, since that allowed me to feel heroic too."

"I got myself into a sad scrape," said Strange to Henry, "but your sister rescued me — did not turn a hair at the carnage."

"Oh, you put me in such good humour with myself!" said Arabella. "There is nothing a child likes better than to feel it has been useful."

"It shows unusual address in my past self that he contrived to please Miss Woodhope, even as he profited from her generosity," said Jonathan. "I always intended to return your handkerchief."

"Why did not you?" said Henry, perplexed.

Jonathan had split some tea in his saucer. 

"Why, I suppose I forgot," he said, absently using the subject of their exchange to mop up the spill. "And is that painting of Henry taking a tumble on the ice another product of your brush, Miss Woodhope?"

Jonathan knew nothing about art, but he was disposed to be interested in anything Miss Woodhope told him, and it was some time before Henry Woodhope managed to break into the conversation. He asked Strange whether he still meant to go to —shire next week. Strange said that he did.

"My father will not countenance anything on his lands being shot at," he said. "Till I can persuade him there is some profit to be made from it, there is no hunting to be had around Ashfair. Oxborrow promises good game, and all of our acquaintance from Cambridge will be there."

Arabella was disappointed to hear him speak so slightingly of his father, for she was of the old-fashioned view that one's parents were due a measure of respect even if they were not all one could desire. But she reminded herself that Mr. Strange had much to endure, if all that was said of Mr. Laurence Strange was true. She said only:

"Poor foxes! I am sorry your youthful kindness for animals has not survived."

Henry gave her a look of reproof, which Arabella answered with, thought Jonathan, the most straightforward look in the world. It was neither defiant nor guilty. It was as much as to say: 

"Why, Henry, you know what I am, and if Mr. Strange does not, it is better that he discovers it at once."

Curiously, perhaps, in such an indulged and self-indulgent young man, Jonathan liked her none the less for the gleam of steel beneath her sweet manner. Indeed, though he only mentioned Miss Woodhope in passing when he wrote to his cousin Margaret that evening, it may be guessed that the following general remarks in his letter were inspired by none other:

_Now you know I only take to people who know their own minds, and this applies as much to women as men, if not more. I like a woman all the better for giving me a set-down — provided that she does it charmingly, and above all that she is right!_

Arabella's discussion with Henry regarding their guest was less propitious. After Mr. Strange had departed, Arabella lingered a while in the drawing room before retiring. They did not often have such interesting guests as a (nearly) handsome young man, and she had no wish to go to bed till they had dissected the day.

"What good company Mr. Strange is," she said to her brother. "I had not guessed it! From your stories I had thought he must be amusing, but he is clever too. He does not lack good sense, despite his absurdity."

Her cheek was flushed, her eye bright, and it took a brother to fail to observe that she looked particularly fetching. Jonathan Strange would not have missed it, but to Henry Arabella was still little more than a child. He had no notion that a country girl — good and sweet, but only pretty-ish and decidedly poor — would be capable of attracting the serious regard of a man of the world like Strange. However, it seemed all too likely that Arabella would be tempted to give Strange too large a portion of her attention, if she were not given fair warning.

"Yes, he is a good fellow," assented Henry carelessly. "An old family, of course, and he shall have two thousand a year when he inherits. But he is something of an eccentric — not, you know, in his father's mould, but I never knew anyone so changeable! Absurd is just the word. At the moment he is, or professes to be, in love with a girl in Edinburgh. He does not trouble to visit her, though he received an invitation from his aunt Erquistoune to join them last week. What he likes best of love is the putting on of affectations. Once he resolved not to eat or drink for a week, by way of showing the depth of his devotion, but after a day he forgot, grew hungry, and fell upon a plate of toasted cheese a servant had prepared for his father."

"Oh! I hope the servant did not suffer for it," cried Arabella.

"I believe he was dismissed. Strange assured me he found a new place," said Henry. "I like Strange very well — he is the best of fellows — but I could wish he were more serious. But he was not brought up to it, you know. Doubtless he will settle down once he comes into his estate. For the time being he is much given to gaming, drinking, riding to hounds and getting up harmless flirtations, but those are the common amusements of young men of his birth. It is merely because he lacks any occupation to give his thoughts direction, but his inheritance will remedy that."

Arabella was rather quiet after this speech, and Henry said no more. He was satisfied he had had the desired effect.

Arabella was no paragon, but a tender-hearted young lady, and she was very ready to fall in love if a fit object could be located. She had found Jonathan Strange fascinating. But unlike Strange, she had been brought up to seriousness. Though she dearly loved a laugh, she only took lightly what merited nothing better. She knew that the best prize a young lady can possess is a well-regulated mind — for there is very little young ladies can control in the world, save their own thoughts and feelings.

Henry had not troubled to be subtle, and the point was taken. Arabella had not, of course, fallen into the error of believing Jonathan Strange had been as much struck with her as she had been with him. To him she must be nothing more than the inconsequential sister of his friend. 

She herself was not quite so susceptible as to have fallen in love with a gentleman upon a day's acquaintance. But though she only liked Mr. Strange, she could not say her liking might not become something more in time. He diverted her; she possessed the highest estimation of his mental faculties; and what was more, she was sorry for him. She could not think of his father and mother without softening towards all his faults, several of which had been perfectly evident even in the brief time they had spent together.

She resolved that henceforth she would avoid Mr. Strange, if chance should again throw them in each other's way. She could not take the decision without regret, for she did not have so many clever, entertaining friends that she could easily spare the prospect of one. But hers was the risk if they continued to meet. Mr. Strange enjoyed variety; he lived in the world and was beset by a hundred distractions. She met few marriageable gentlemen, and it would not be difficult for Mr. Strange to show away well in comparison with those she saw. 

The choice was obvious. Being seventeen and still easily delighted by novelty of sentiment, Arabella rather enjoyed the sensation of conscious virtue in making it. She went to sleep perfectly contented.

Without nearly as much reflection, Jonathan had arrived at his own decision. He forgot the lady in Edinburgh so far as to be surprised by the notice of her marriage in the newspaper a fortnight later, for he had not thought of her at all in that time. And he began to visit his old friend Henry Woodhope with flattering regularity. 

But somehow Miss Woodhope contrived to be away whenever he came by. A month after his visit, indeed, she accepted an invitation to visit friends in Gloucestershire, and his attentions to Henry declined somewhat. It was a curious thing, but he still possessed her handkerchief.


End file.
